(Corrects company name to Vulcan Petroleum, which is notrelated to Paul Allen's Vulcan Energy)

* Africa's top oil producer refines a fraction of its crude

* Six refineries to be built with 180,000 bpd capacity

By Tim Cocks and Camillus Eboh

LAGOS/ABUJA, July 2 (Reuters) - Nigeria signed a memorandumof understanding on Monday with Vulcan Petroleum Resources for a$4.5 billion project to build six refineries with a combined180,000 barrel a day capacity, officials said on Wednesday.

Vulcan, an affiliate of New York-based private equity firmVulcan Capital Corp, aimed to have two of the refineriesfinished in under a year, they said.

Nigeria is Africa's top crude oil producer but itsrefineries are in such a state of disrepair that they meet onlya fraction of its domestic fuel needs. Its crude is shipped outand costly refined products imported.

"The project is estimated to gulp 697.5bn naira ($4.5b),while two of the refineries are expected to be completed withinthe next 12 months," Yemi Kolapo, spokeswoman for the tradeministry, said in a statement.

"Each modular refinery, when completed, will refine up to30,000 barrels of crude oil per day and produce up to fivemillion litres of petrol, diesel, kerosene and LPFO (liquidpetroleum fuel oil)."

Nigeria's existing plants have a total capacity of 445,000barrels per day, but are running at less than three-quarters ofthat capacity.

Chief Edozie Njoku, chairman of Petroleum Refining andStrategic Reserve, Vulcan's partner in the joint venture, toldReuters by phone the aim was to distribute the sites indifferent regions of Nigeria.

"We have to look at where the crude pipelines are. We needto plant them so that everyone is favoured, but in the north thepipelines only go to Kaduna (in central Nigeria)," he said.

"Two of them are going to be finished in about a year. It'snot rocket science - to have all six ready should take about 30months," he added.

Nigeria has two refineries in its main oil-hub Port Harcourtand one each in the Niger Delta town of Warri and in Kaduna.

Some Nigerians are sceptical about building more refinerieswhen existing ones are under capacity, but Njoku dismissed this.

"The refineries already in Nigeria are on their last legs.They will cost the country millions to turn around. Nigerianeeds new refineries," he said.

A lot of MoUs are signed with Nigerian authorities that gonowhere, but Njoku said he was confident the projects wouldhappen.

"The only thing we need for this to be done is our permitsfrom the government ... They have shown enough honesty that theywant these refineries to be built," he said.